


Until You Understand

by mylittlecthulhu (marineko)



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 10:32:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17343692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marineko/pseuds/mylittlecthulhu
Summary: From the first time they meet, Sho is sure that Satoshi is a person he’ll never really understand.





	Until You Understand

From the first time they meet, Sho is sure that Satoshi is a person he’ll never really understand.

Sho is sullen and pissed off with his parents and life in general. He had won an audition to the new dance group recruitment, and he had worked hard on his audition piece, but he’s underage and needs parental permission and both of them are too busy being mad at him for applying behind their backs to listen. It’s _his_ life, _his_ dream that they’re throwing away, and they don’t even care.

They drag him to one of his father’s dinners saying that the host family’s son will be there, like he cares. The entire drive, he’s been hearing nothing else – how the Ohnos’ son has won a prestigious scholarship, how he gets perfect grades, how he is the student council president and the drama club president (because schools want students with diverse interests, after all) and he’s been accepted to three of the top five schools in the country, only because he hadn’t applied to the other two. 

Sho tunes out most of this – there isn’t much to get, so this perfect son sounds perfectly boring, he can’t believe he’s going to be forced to sit through dinner with this person – while fiddling with his music player, wishing that he’d brought a book. But his mother always frisks him before these things, and trying to hide one is usually more trouble than it’s worth.

He’s supposed to ask the Ohnos’ perfect son to mentor him, he knows. Because soon it will be his time for college applications and all the things he dreads, all the things he had wished he could bypass by joining that dance group. Now that his parents are extra alert of his activities, he’s being nagged about business school on a daily basis.

The perfect son is conspicuously missing when they are shown to the living room, and his parents chat with the Ohnos. He gazes at the absolutely useless and probably ridiculously expensive figurines in the glass cabinets. Man, he thinks. Mrs. Ohno must be nuts about those things. He wonders how long the maids take to dust them. He wonders if he could manage to steal, or at least break one. He wonders if he should have gone through the trouble of hiding a book in his jacket, or pants, before leaving the house.

Then his mother nudges him, and he realizes that Mrs. Ohno is talking to him. He tries to be polite, but is horrified when she suggests he look for her son. “He should be in his room, upstairs,” she says. “You could call him down for dinner.”

Don’t they have maids for that? He wonders, but his mother is giving him a _look_ , and he is already in too much trouble about the audition thing for him to cause more. And it’s just one boring, perfect guy. He excuses himself, and goes.

The house turns out to be not quite as large as it seems – or at least, upstairs everything seems cozier compared to the grandness of the living area. Second door on the right, he reminds himself, and knocks.

No one answers.

He knocks again.

Still, no answer.

He touches the doorknob hesitantly; it turns easily in his hands. There is music playing, but he doesn’t recognize it. Sounds like a woman wailing. He supposes that not everyone has the good sense to listen to something with a decent beat. He looks around the – surprisingly normal, if large – room, and notes the figure lying in the sofa bed by the window. 

_Well, that’s…_ he doesn’t finish his thought, distracted by the sight. When his parents had been telling him all about the Ohno son, he had thought, rather sarcastically, _is he the Sun God, too?_ But it seems almost believable, looking at the young man before him – skin so sun-kissed, nothing like the Ohnos’, and bleached out hair falling over his eyes. 

As if realizing his presence, the eyes flutter open. Sho blinks back at the person who now resembles a kind of sleepy owl. _Cute_ wouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind, but only because Sho refuses to admit the word to his vocabulary.

“Sho-kun,” he says, voice a little raspy from sleep. “You’re Sho-kun, right?”

He stares for almost a full minute before realizing that the man is waiting for his answer. “Ah. Yes.”

A grin, quick as lighting, causing a strange flop in Sho’s stomach, that disappears as soon as it comes. “I’m Satoshi.”

Sho nods. “Your mother,” he says. “She asks if you would come down for dinner.”

Ohno – Satoshi, Sho thinks – regards him for a moment. “Okay.”

Sho waits while Satoshi washes his face, and changes his shirt. Satoshi walks behind him as they go down the stairs, and he finds himself irritatingly aware of Satoshi the whole time. 

Satoshi isn’t just perfect, he thinks. He’s the sort of person who is just naturally good at everything, and never thinks that other people struggle just to do marginally as well. The scholarship, the schools, everything Sho’s parents say makes him the perfect son – he doesn’t seem to even care. That’s the baffling thing, the thing that mystifies Sho even as it angers him.

He finds himself looking at Satoshi more than he probably should, at dinner. Sometimes Satoshi looks back, and offers the same quick grin he’s seen earlier. Sho ignores the flip-flopping of his untrustworthy insides, and focuses on staring at his food. After all the quiet family dinners at home, that’s something he has a lot of practice with.

})i({

The perfect Ohno son turns out not to be so perfect after all, Sho learns, when he hears that Satoshi had rejected every single college acceptance he’s received. The Ohnos’ don’t seem troubled by this, when Sho sees them at dinner. “As long as he’s happy,” Mrs. Ohno said, beaming proudly like her son had graduated with honors rather than decided not to go to school. “We’ve always encouraged him to follow his dreams.”

Sho keeps his eyes on his plate, not only to stop staring at Satoshi, but also because he could feel his father’s eyes on him. His parents had laid out an ultimatum for him, and he’s busy with college applications.

He follows Satoshi to his room after dinner, while their parents have drinks. “Are you really not going to school?” he asks.

Satoshi shrugs. “I guess not. I might take a few classes, if I feel like it.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“Travel.” Satoshi’s answer comes quick, but it isn’t out of impatience. He just doesn’t talk all that much, although with a chatterbox for a mom Sho isn’t surprised.

“And after that?”

“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out then.”

“But –” Sho starts. He stops, embarrassed, but Satoshi is patient. He wordlessly encourages Sho to continue. “You’re so _talented_ , and _smart_ , it’ll be a waste.”

It is only Sho’s third time having dinner at the Ohnos’, and a year since their first meet, but Mrs. Ohno had sent him a copy of a play Satoshi’s drama club put up. He’d been completely mesmerized, seeing Satoshi on stage. 

Satoshi doesn’t answer. Instead, he puts on one of his CDs, and they listen in silence, sitting side by side on the sofa bed. By the third song Satoshi’s breathing evens out and he’s sort of leaning against Sho as he drifts into sleep. Sho doesn’t wake him or move; he closes his eyes, trying to separate the sensation of the places where they touch, and the strange, paint-like fumes of the room mixed with the sweeter scent wafting from Satoshi, and the heartbreaking voice coming from the CD player.

He wonders if anything ever stays, if there will ever be another time when everything seems so clear and sharp and _right_ , if he will see Satoshi again.

})i({

Perhaps his parents were right, he thinks, although it isn’t something he could easily admit out loud. So he would never be a dancer, or famous, or special. There had been no guarantee that he would have made it, anyway. And he is happy.

“You know, Sho-chan,” Aiba is saying. “Sometimes when you stare out the window like that you get this look that’s downright depressing.”

“I’m not staring out the window,” he protests. 

“Nope, you’re just looking out for a really long time,” Nino agrees in a most unhelpful manner. But he’s smiling, and Sho smiles back.

“I was actually thinking that I’m happy,” he confesses. Nino raises an eyebrow, while Aiba is already on his case about how he shouldn’t look _sad_ when he’s thinking that he’s happy.

“No, I am,” he says. “I was thinking that I have a good life, and I’m lucky to have friends like you guys.”

“Okay,” Nino replies quickly, before Aiba does. He stands up, holds up a hand. “I’m going to the bar. Call me when you’re not a sap anymore.”

“He’s just surprised,” Aiba tells Sho. “And very, very touched. He doesn’t know how to handle that.” 

Aiba, it seems, have no such problem. He gives Sho one of his too-bright smiles and pulls Sho into a hug. “I love you too, Sho-chan.”

Sho grunts, embarrassed, when Aiba finally lets go. He looks around, but no one is looking at them. “Thanks. I think.”

He doesn’t think that he’d said anything particularly strange – he hadn’t declared his love for his best friends, like Aiba just did, after all. He had just stated the truth. He isn’t passionate about his job, but he enjoys the fact that he’s good at what he does. His teenage self would have described him as a boring old man, but he’s beginning to realize that he really doesn’t care. He had met Aiba and Nino in college, because they shared a dorm – now Nino is a troubadour of sorts, his lifestyle mostly supported by Sho and Aiba, who strangely enough ended up becoming a famous self-help guru, although why people pay so much to listen to him, Sho doesn’t know. 

“You’re having that depressed face again,” Aiba tells him.

“I am _not_ ,” he says, before forgetting the rest of his sentence, and Aiba, and Nino, and the rest of his contemplations. Satoshi does that to him, always.

He had almost forgotten about Satoshi. Their families met up less frequently since Satoshi left Japan, although Mrs. Ohno always regales Sho with her son’s latest adventures when they did. He knows now that Satoshi isn’t just a talented actor – he’s a brilliant artist, working mostly with paint and sculptures, and the figures that his mother keeps in the glass cabinet in their living room. Sho had even went to one of Satoshi’s gallery openings, but there were too many people, and he hadn’t been able to catch Satoshi’s eye at all.

But there Satoshi – or at least, Satoshi’s painting – is, right before him, in this small, unknown gallery. “I thought they’re exhibiting new, unknown artists today,” he murmurs to himself.

“What’s that?” Aiba asks. He shakes his head. Aiba looks at the painting, and nods. “Ohno Satoshi. They’re lucky to get him, I guess, although I hear that he’s one of the big shots who would happily give away works to small places like this to help them out.”

“It isn’t as if he needs the money,” Sho says, but Aiba doesn’t really hear him because an inebriated Nino is weaving through the crowd and calling to them, loudly.

“Guys, _guys_ ,” Nino is saying. “I met the most beautiful guy, you _have_ to see him.”

It’s irrational but the first thought that comes to Sho’s mind is Satoshi, but then he turns and sees that Nino is being helped by a tall, striking man who could perhaps be the most beautiful guy in anyone else’s book. The guy looks extremely annoyed. 

“Does this… _person_ ,” he says, eyeing Nino with distaste – Sho wonders if he had been about to call Nino a _thing_ , “belong to you?”

“Yes,” Aiba answers promptly. “He is our very precious best friend and we only ask you to take care of him and return him in the same condition you took him. You have our blessings.”

Sho tries not to laugh as the man redirects his murderous look to Aiba. “He’s harmless,” he says. “Usually. Thanks for bringing him over.” 

Aiba peels Nino off the man and drags him away to a place where he could help Nino sober up. Sho watches them leave, amused, before thanking the man again. The man’s expression melts into one of relief as he relaxes somewhat.

“How many drinks did Nino have, anyway?” he asks.

“Just the one,” the man replies. He looks puzzled.

“He’s a weak drinker, but usually it takes a bit more than that, unless he hasn’t been eating properly again.” Sho frowns. “Aiba’s supposed to make sure that he remembers to eat.”

“He sounds like my – friend,” the man says. “He gets into these… phases, I guess… and he wouldn’t sleep or eat for long stretches unless I make him.”

“He’s a video game addict, too?”

“No,” the man says, laughing a little, with a slightly horrified expression. “I should think not. He’s an artist.”

This can’t be a coincidence, Sho thinks, as the man goes on.

“Satoshi – that’s his name – doesn’t really stop, once he starts working on something. Usually he’s so laidback and almost sloth-like, but then inspiration strikes and it’s like he’s runs on some special demonic energy that disappears the moment his finishes whatever he’s working on. That’s his painting you were looking at. Took him three days of no sleep – and being force fed – to finish that.”

Sho doesn’t know the Satoshi this man is talking about, the one who runs on demonic energy and burning passion. It jars in him, a disquiet he can’t quite place, the knowledge that this is a Satoshi he hasn’t seen.

He doesn’t notice Satoshi until he’s right there next to Nino’s beautiful guy, blinking at him sleepily in a way that reminds him of the first time they met. Satoshi’s hair is different, now, slicked back and somewhat puffed up with more product that Sho had ever owned. Sho wonders if Satoshi looks like that all the time, now.

“What are we talking about?” Satoshi asks.

“You,” the other man said. He sounds affectionate, and so different from how he had sounded earlier that a part of Sho gets indignant, who is this man talking to Satoshi like that, when it’s Sho who had known Satoshi forever. And never, he reminds himself – a few brief conversations and family dinners doesn’t even make them friends, not really.

“Ah.” Satoshi is eloquent as always, letting that single syllable express everything and nothing, as he eyes Sho. “You’ve grown up,” he says. “Sho-kun.”

Sho feels his throat tighten, and his cheeks warm under the scrutiny, but he manages to sound normal enough to pass. “And you. You’ve made quite a name for yourself.”

“You know each other?”

“We used to be –” Sho pauses, searching for a word. Satoshi helps.

“Friends,” Satoshi says. Sho bites the inside of his cheek, trying to stop his elation from translating itself to the world in bright, loony smiles.

The man looks happy, and not at all threatened. “Oh,” he says. “I didn’t know.”

Of course you wouldn’t, Sho thinks, but he doesn’t say it. He smiles back. “I’m Sakurai Sho,” he says. “I knew Satoshi when we were younger, but we haven’t been in touch in a long time.”

“Matsumoto Jun,” the other man replies with his own name. “Satoshi and I live together, a couple of blocks from here actually.”

Sho remembers the slight pause before Matsumoto calls Satoshi a friend, and he wonders. 

He shakes both their hands, and tells them that he needs to leave when Aiba starts bombarding him with SOS messages from the café across the block. Nino, it seems, refuses to sober up, and is demanding Aiba to take him back to the pretty guy at the gallery.

Matsumoto’s hand is warm and firm as they take his. Satoshi’s is slightly damp, but fits better between his fingers as they clasp, and linger. “See you,” Satoshi says, and Sho wonders about the way his voice travels under his skin like electric running through him.

})i({

On Nino’s birthday Sho and Aiba take him outdoors for a picnic, because he’s been looking too pale. Aiba’s girlfriend sends them off with an abundance of food, telling them to house Aiba for the night night, because she’s having her girlfriends over. Aiba tries to wheedle Nino into letting him stay over when Nino announces that he’s seeing someone. He doesn’t say that it’s serious, but the very fact that he’s saying anything at all alerts Sho and Aiba that it is.

“Is it a guy or a girl?” Aiba asks.

“Guy,” Nino says, eyeing Aiba with suspicion. Exactly what he suspects Aiba of, they would never know. “You’ve met him – Matsumoto Jun.”

Sho has a million and one questions all of a sudden, beginning with _when did you even start dating_ , and ending with _but I thought he’s with Satoshi_. But Aiba has questions, too, and is loud as he peppers Nino with them. Nino only replies by saying that he has said all that he wants to say on the subject.

})i({

Despite the fact that Nino has been dating Matsumoto – now just Jun to him and Aiba – for almost a year, Sho hardly sees Satoshi. Jun would accompany the three of them when they go out, sometimes, but Satoshi rarely joins in. Satoshi still travels a lot, it seems, and he leaves without notice, with only a cryptic note for Jun stuck on their fridge.

Sometimes the notes contain words or actual answers, but more often than not they’re sketch or drawing of some sort. Sometimes it’s easy, like the time Satoshi had left a detailed sketch of an elephant – “he went to Africa, of course!” Aiba had said, while Nino scoffed and pointed out that the elephant was obviously of the Indian variant. Not knowing much about elephants, Sho had wisely chosen to stay out of the conversation, running his fingers gently over the pencil work. And then there had been the note card with the watercolour of an old-fashioned pipe. They couldn’t decide what it meant until Satoshi returned, claiming that it was obviously a Sherlock Holmes reference and he had been in London. Sho had stayed out of the argument that ensued after that, as well.

He doesn’t really care where Satoshi is, he tells himself – away is away, and means that it’s just the four of them that weekend, again. On the rare occasion when Satoshi is home and not working, he talks more than usual, telling Sho about the places he’s been to. On these nights Sho would feel a sharp pang of longing for something unknown, something more than just the now familiar slow burning he feels when Satoshi is near. On these nights he concentrates instead on the sound of Satoshi’s voice talking, the rumble of the others in the background, the haunting strains of music from the house band (that sometimes claim Nino as one of theirs), and the smoke from their cigarettes spiraling up into the air, tangling with each other before escaping out the window, or wherever it is that they go.

})i({

One night when they meet at the usual café Jun and Nino have identical, thoughtful looks on their faces. Aiba asks if they’re taking lessons from Sho, but Nino easily distracts him by flicking a finger across Aiba’s forehead. Sho is used to this, and watches Jun as Jun watches them in bemusement.

“Satoshi left this morning,” Jun tells Sho. “I thought he’s going to actually show up this time, since it’s so close. I thought he’d stay for one more night, at least.”

“I suppose there’s something that can’t wait, somewhere,” Sho says. He wonders what is it that can’t wait, that captures Satoshi’s attention so perfectly. 

“I wonder where he’s gone to, this time,” Aiba adds. They look at Jun expectantly, waiting for the guessing game of Where’s Satoshi to start. Jun produces the latest note card from their absent friend.

They stare at it, puzzled.

“That’s me,” Sho says. “Isn’t it?”

“The likeness is hard to ignore,” Nino says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sho asks Jun.

“Hell if I know.” Jun is more irritable than usual, but Sho can’t quite get rid of the feeling that Jun _does_ know. 

He spends the rest of the evening thinking about it, and keeps reaching out for the card, that Jun tells him to keep it.

})i({

He finds Satoshi sitting on the steps to his apartment. He blinks at the other man, partly out of surprise, partly to reassure himself that it’s not an apparition. “Satoshi?” he asks.

“MatsuJun is having Nino over tonight,” Satoshi says. “Can I stay with you?”

Sho nods, although he doesn’t really remember Satoshi ever having a problem with Jun having Nino over. And Satoshi had never been to his place, not once.

“Is that what your card means?” he asks, fingers touching his pocket lightly, where the card has been put away. Satoshi just smiles. “You could have just gone out with us, if you’re going to be in town, you know.”

“It’s better this way,” Satoshi says. Sho has no idea what he means, and decides to leave things be. He has too much trouble trying to keep himself calm, as it is. It’s like everything inside him is rebelling, like every movement is crackled with electricity, and his jaw hurts from trying not to smile too much. It’s just Satoshi, he tells himself. And you’re not a kid anymore. But it doesn’t work. It’s been so long since he last saw Satoshi, and longer still since the last time they had been alone together.

Sho’s apartment is smaller than one would expect, but he doesn’t need much. There are two rooms. One is so tiny it’s more of a storage space than anything else – Sho keeps boxes of things he can’t bear to throw out, and shelves of books in there. His bedroom is small, too, and messy. Piles of clothes lay scattered on the floor and over the backs of chairs, and that morning’s teacup is still laid out on the dining table.

There is barely a living room, but there is a small corner with a television and a comfortable sofa. Satoshi lets Sho take his coat, and waits for Sho to hang it before pulling Sho closer, and pulling Sho down to press his lips to the small corner of Sho’s. The touch burns more intensely than Satoshi’s touches ever had, but when Sho is debating between questioning him and demanding a real kiss, Satoshi shakes his head. “Tired,” is all he says. “Talk later.”

From the disheveled, smeared appearance of his clothing, Sho figures that Satoshi had been working before coming over. And since Satoshi never stops until he’s done, he would guess that Satoshi hadn’t slept in at least a day or two. “Have you eaten?”

Satoshi doesn’t reply, so Sho steers him to the sofa. Satoshi falls into it in a graceful heap, tugging at Sho until he fell onto the sofa, too, in a less graceful sprawl. Satoshi lets Sho rearrange his limbs, laying his head on Sho’s lap before sleep takes him. 

“I don’t get you at all,” Sho says, but he thinks he gets exactly what Satoshi is trying to say this time. 

It takes a long time before sleep would come to him, and he spends the night listening to Satoshi breathing, and breathing in the smell of paint from Satoshi’s clothes. He wonders why even though there is no music and they’re no longer quite who they used to be, everything is exactly the same. He doesn’t have the answer to that, but he knows that Satoshi is still going to disappear every now and then, and he still is going to go to the office once Monday comes around, and he knows that Satoshi will come back, just as he knows exactly what they will talk about when Satoshi wakes up, and that the words they say would be repeated in encore, in the years to come. 

He knows this; there is nothing else to understand.

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for the raibowfilling rare pair bingo/challenge


End file.
